Giant order for Wärtsilä

The engineering company Wärtsilä received a major order for 24 engines from the Korean shipyard Samsung Heavy Industries in March. The order is one of the biggest single orders for marine engines in the company's history. The value of the order was not disclosed.

The Wärtsilä 50 DF dual-fuel engines will be installed in six LNG vessels. Deliveries of the engines will begin from Wärtsilä's Trieste factory in Italy in January 2007. The first of the vessels will be ready at the beginning of 2008.

Dual-fuel-electric offers significant efficiency and environmental benefits compared with the steam turbine system. "We have established a firm foothold in a market traditionally dominated by competing technology," says a jubilant Mikael Mäkinen, Executive Vice President at Wärtsilä.

www.wartsila.com

Construction of nuclear power plant starts

The actual construction work of Teollisuuden Voima Oy's (TVO) third nuclear power plant unit started at Olkiluoto in the municipality of Eurajoki in March. TVO handed over the work site of Olkiluoto 3 on time in February to the plant suppliers, a consortium consisting of Framatome ANP and Siemens.

This biggest single construction task in the Olkiluoto 3 project will begin in the summer of 2005 and last some three years. The unit will come on stream in 2009.

More intelligent packaging on the way

The Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), in cooperation with four universities, has developed electronic and optical components which bring new features and intelligence to product packaging and can be produced on a normal printing machine.

The new-technology packaging gives more information about the origins, quality and use of the product than present packaging. It can also function as a security marking.

Information is recorded, for example, in many languages in an optical memory of a few millimetres that is pressed into the surface of the packaging. The memory can contain dozens of pages of text. Consumers can read the product information and user instructions in their own language with the aid of a camera phone. In addition, more impressive pictures than at present are created on the surface of the packaging with the new technology.

www.vtt.fi

World briefs

Finland top of the environmental league

Finland was once again placed first in an environmental comparison commissioned by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Finland's strengths are the quality of water and air, the level of science and technology and the effectiveness of environmental management. Finland is also a success in terms of the material consumption, volume of waste and consumption of natural resources per head.

The comparison took in 146 countries. Norway, Uruguay, Sweden and Iceland joined Finland at the top. This is the fourth time that the comparison has been made and Finland has always come out on top. The universities of Yale and Columbia in the USA were responsible for carrying out the survey.

Finnish rehabilitation for Malaysia

The musculoskeletal disorders of five million Malaysian employees will be put right with methods and treatment developed by the Vantaa-based DBC International Oy. An agreement was announced in Kuala Lumpur in February.

"This is a considerable breakthrough for us on the southeast Asian rehabilitation market," says director Petri Kiviranta.

In the method developed by DBC International the patient is given a tailor-made, CAD treatment programme. The aim is a restore the musculoskeletal system to good working order and support a lifestyle based on physical exercise in order to maintain the outcome of the treatment.

www.dbc.fi

Finland third-best in usage of IT

Finland is the third-best country in the usage of information technology. The best country in this respect is Singapore, according to a report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in March. Second came Iceland, fourth Denmark, fifth the USA and sixth Sweden.

According to the WEF, the strengths combining the Nordic countries are IT innovations, and enthusiastic and wide-scale use of new technology. This is the second time in succession that Finland has been placed third.

Large pulp mill for Uruguay

Metsä-Botnia, a joint venture company of Metsäliitto and UPM, will construct a large pulp mill at the town of Fray Bentos, in Uruguay, near the border with Argentina.

The mill will cost 830 million euros and will be the biggest Finnish direct investment abroad. It will also be the biggest industrial investment in Uruguay's history.

The mill will start up in the autumn of 2007. The mill's annual capacity will be a million tones of short-fibre eucalyptus pulp. Of the production, 70 per cent will go to the owners and the rest will be exported.

www.metsabotnia.com

The actual construction work of Teollisuuden Voima Oy's (TVO) third nuclear power plant unit started at Olkiluoto in the municipality of Eurajoki in March.